


5 times Nico was Alone, and the First time Hades was There

by WordsFromTheOtherSide



Series: Nico di Angelo One-Shots [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Abandonment, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abandonment, Depressing, Depression, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Hades (Percy Jackson) is a Good Parent, Hades is a Good Parent, Hurt Nico di Angelo, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loneliness, Nico di Angelo Needs a Hug, Parent-Child Relationship, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, references to abandonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27932581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordsFromTheOtherSide/pseuds/WordsFromTheOtherSide
Summary: Nico has been alone ever since he was ten years old, when Bianca died. He never felt accepted by anyone since then, and he never felt like he really belonged. This is 5 times when Nico di Angelo felt he needed his father and the first time that Hades was really there for him.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo & Hades
Series: Nico di Angelo One-Shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050980
Comments: 1
Kudos: 77





	5 times Nico was Alone, and the First time Hades was There

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN I AM A SUCKER FOR HADES BEING A GOOD PARENT TO NICO AND I'M GOING TO GO DOWN WITH THIS CONCEPT LIKE A CAPTAIN WITH THEIR SHIP.

1.)

It hurt to breathe, his lungs burned as the icy air filled his aching lungs. He’d been running for so long, his nose and cheeks were so cold, and he felt his tears beginning to freeze as soon as they left his eyes. His mouth was dry and his lips were cracking, and his throat burned as he attempted to sob and breathe at the same time. He choked, and his vision blurred and his foot caught on something - maybe a rock or a root buried under the thick snow of the woods of Camp Half-Blood. He managed to cry out as he fell, but he didn’t hit the ground immediately. He felt a loud wind pull at his clothes and he heard voices, crying out to him - talking to him, and he actually understood their garbled whispered screams.

When he really landed, it wasn’t in snow, but hard, gravel like sand that was even colder than the snow had been. He took a shuttering breath before he broke and started sobbing, curled into a pathetic fetal position as he sobbed. He felt something inside him breaking, shattering to a million pieces that would never truly be able to be put back together right. He felt a deeper sadness than he’d ever felt before. His sister - the only family that he’d had for so, so long - was gone. He’d thought he’d lost her when she joined Artemis as one of her hunters, but then he had the chance to see her again, even if only once in a while. But now, now she was _dead_. He’d _never_ see her again. He was alone, really alone.

Then Nico was angry - _why_ did Bianca have to join the hunters in the first place? _Why_ did she have to abandon him? They’d only had each other for so long! Was she that mad at him for telling her that - It had to be that, she was disgusted by him, so she wanted out of her role as his only family. When she joined the hunters, she was supposed to cut contact with him - it was her escape. He was nothing but a burden to his big sister. He was nothing but a dead weight and a parasite stuck to her. A thorn in her side that she was so glad to be free from.

Nico sobbed, his anger falling away back into a heavy sadness and made his gut twist and his chest ache. He laid there, sobbing for something - someone to come and comfort him. Someone to see this poor ten year old and think, just for a moment, that they should help him, ask him what was wrong and tell him that things were going to be okay.

But no one came. He was completely alone, and no one was going to come to his rescue.

2.)

The Labyrinth was . . . scary to say the least. Even with Minos as his guide, Nico was still lost, and just as confused. The son of Hades thought he would be able to find some kind of comfort or _something_ with Minos - maybe he still longed for some kind of human contact, maybe he was still searching for some kind of approval from someone. The ghost had taught him enough; how to summon and speak to the dead, and some of his powers too, like shadow traveling, and raising some zombie warriors. That was really draining, if he raised too many warriors or travelled too far or too much, he’d get tired and he’d even passed out several times.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t shadow travel through the Labyrinth, it was too complicated to understand - only walking a few feet took him to a completely different country, and turning a corner could just take him to completely separate continent! He thought Minos was guiding him, and he followed, stupidly and blindly trusting the old ghost. In the end, they just kept getting lost. Then he ran into Percy Jackson and his friends. Stupid Percy Jackson and his stupid sea green eyes that shone like emeralds and sparkled like diamonds and his stupid black hair that looked so soft -

He hated Percy Jackson. He hated Percy Jackson’s friends and his camp. He hated it all. _He hated that he thought he loved Percy._

After the incident in Daedalus’ workshop, after he’d banished Minos’ soul and took on the title of Ghost King, he felt alone again. He didn’t go back to Camp with the others - he simply didn’t belong there. There was no place for him at Camp, just like there was no place for his father on Olympus. He ended up wandering the streets of some no where town in some no where state, feeling the nigh wind’s brush through his hair and lap at his skin. He shivered, pulling his oversized aviator tighter around his body, it wasn’t too cold, but it was enough to make the tips of his fingers start to go numb.

He sighed, feeling his stomach tighten with that stupid human need for food. He scowled, and found that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something. Bianca would’ve made some kind of joke about his lack of weight - _“If you eat any left, you’ll blow away in the next gust of wind!”_ She would’ve said, followed by her musical laugh. Nico felt his chest ache at that thought.

He bit his inner cheek as he dug through his pocket, hoping to find some kind of money.He only found a couple tens, three drachma and some lint. He sighed and tried to think of somewhere to eat that wasn’t too expensive, and his mind wandered back to McDonald’s, where he’d gotten food to summon Bianca’s soul a few times. Their food wasn’t too expensive, he supposed, so he focused, thinking hard and picturing he building in his mind before stepping into the shadows, feeling them engulf his body. He heard the voices of the dead whispering and screaming in his ears while ghostly hands grabbed at his clothes and skin.

When he stepped from the shadows once more, the lighting was different - maybe he’d accidentally travelled too far, into another time zone? He blinked, realizing that it seemed to be midday - people bustling about, and the sky was blue. He stared at the crowd of people, and the signs on the buildings, realizing that he couldn’t understand it quickly enough - not because of his dyslexia, but because it was unusual symbols and markings that he couldn’t figure out - they were probably Chinese or Japanese or some kind of Asian language he didn’t know. He swallowed a lump in his throat, before taking a step forward, hoping to find a new shadow to return back to America with, but he immediately felt fatigue rush in and hit him like a freight train on steroids, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he felt himself fall limp on the ground.

Things were dark for a while and when he came to, the sky was darker and he heard quiet voices angrily talking in another language he couldn’t place. He sat up slowly, finding some people standing around him, and they stared at him, before one pulled out a knife, brandishing it towards him, in a threatening manner. Nico gulped back his fear and reached behind him, patting the ground for something, until he felt the comforting darkness wash over him and carry him into the void of that place between the light and the living, and the realm of death.

He fell back onto a hard cement ground, scraping his hands on the dirty sidewalk. It took him several minutes to get over his fatigue, vomiting up nothing but pure bile onto the street beside him. He patted his pockets, finding _nothing_ , those guys had taken his money, or he’d lost it during shadow traveling somehow. At least he still had his sword, he supposed.

He sighed, and curled in on himself, of course things would happen like this. He wasn’t allowed to be happy, or have food in his stomach. He wasn’t allowed to have anything but suffering and hatred. Nothing but misery and pain. He wasn’t good for anything else, after all.

3.)

Nico felt shockingly relieved. The war against Kronos was over. He was getting his own place at Camp Half-Blood. Hades, as well as a lot of other unrecognized gods were getting their own cabins, and the unclaimed demigods were getting claimed by their parents - Iris, Nike, Hypnos, Hebe and a several other gods and goddesses were claiming their children. All because of Percy Jackson making the gods promise to claim their children, and making sure they all got their place at camp.

But despite this promise of a place, a _home_ , and the relief that the war was over, Nico still felt like an outsider, someone just watching things fall into place, watching demigods train, talk, play games of basketball and volleyball and make things at the arts and crafts area. Nico couldn’t help but feel like he didn’t belong there. Like he were a piece of a puzzle that had accidentally gotten packaged with the wrong puzzle. He was there, but he had no use, no purpose. So he went to the Underworld.

After the war, Hades had told Nico that he was proud, but that didn’t erase everything that the god had said to him, all those things that pushed Nico to a point in his life where he felt truly worthless.Maybe, Nico would sometimes muse to himself, that Hades wasn’t a terrible father. Maybe he hadn’t _really_ meant those things. In the end, though, those were just stupid wishes. So Nico just ended up avoiding his father, which was what he felt to be the right thing to do. So, when Nico went to he Underworld out of his own volition, he purposely stayed far away from Hades’ palace.

He’d walk along the banks of the Styx, contemplating its story - how it was polluted with humanity’s lost dreams, and empty hate. He thought about how its acidic waters could wash away not only one’s body, but also one’s soul. Sometimes, on what he considered to be his worse days, he would sit dangerously close to the waters and consider jumping in. Letting his soul go and fall away into nothing so he wouldn’t have to continue on with living such a pathetic life, alone and forgotten. Cast away like a child’s broken toy.

He sat on the edge of the Styx, watching as forgotten dreams drifted through its dark waters, carrying the lives that could’ve been. The dreams that were mercilessly ripped from human’s hands as they were taken from the mortal realm and places, instead, into the hands of his Father and his judges.

Nico sometimes remembered that he’d never truly be free from his father. He would die one day, and he’d be stuck forever in his father’s realm, and even, by some miracle, that he has the option of rebirth, he’d once again return to his father’s realm at some point. No matter what path he took, he’d always be forced to come crawling back into the Underworld, and he’d always come back to a father who seemingly didn’t care for him.

4.)

Camp Jupiter and New Rome was odd, in Nico’s opinion. It was so _different_ from Camp Half-Blood, practically a complete one-nighty. While the Greeks were unorganized and free-spirited, the Romans were strict and militaristic, so structured and organized. Praetor Reyna Ramirez-Arellano seemed to be the strictest of them all; she was essentially in charge of the entire camp. Not to mention the most intimidating young woman Nico had met, other than Annabeth Chase.

“Who are you, exactly?” Reyna asked from behind her desk. Her two golden and silver hounds stood on either side of her, silently glaring at the son of Hades with ruby eyes.

“I am Nico di Angelo, and I am the son of Pluto,” He said, his voice level, even if speaking his father’s Roman counterpart tasted sour on his tongue.

“Why are you at my camp?”

“My father has sent me to act as his ambassador here,” He said. “I am also here to introduce my sister, Hazel Levesque, into your camp,”

“I see, and are these also on your father’s orders?” She sat back, glaring at him with dark eyes.

“Yes, Praetor,” He spoke calmly as he could.

“As my dogs haven’t attacked you yet, I can trust you’re being honest.” She stood from her chair and walked around her desk. She held her hand out stiffly to the Ghost King. “Allow me to be the first to welcome you to New Rome and Camp Jupiter, Ambassador of Pluto,” Nico took her and and thanked her.

Despite a personal welcome from the most powerful person of this pseudo-Rome, Nico still felt out of place and alone. He was confused for so many reasons.

Why had his father sent him to this camp? Why was it him, rather than some other, more important demigod, like Percy? If Hades found out that he’d stolen Hazel from the Fields of Asphodel, he’d be dead, and Hazel would be returned, and Hades isn’t that easy to fool, so _why_ hasn’t he shown up yet to smite him and his newfound half-sister?

Nico couldn’t come up with any logical answers to those questions so he just laid in the bed that he was given by Reyna for his temporary stay. He stared at the ceiling, feeling lost and hopeless, wishing for someone to explain things to him. His father must’ve felt he was capable enough to give him this mission, but not capable enough to tell him the reasons why? Why was Hades so confusing and self-contradictory? Nico doubted that he’d ever know.

In the end, he was here, so he might as well try to figure out the Romans’ deals. See how they worked, and maybe see how long they would believe his charade, especially with Reyna’s lie-detecting hounds.

5.)

Tartarus was the single most horrible experience Nico had ever had. He felt so alone, like he was abandoned there, at the deepest pit of the world, literal Hell, where monsters never truly died for more than a few hours, where he was at the bottom of the food chain, and the damn place was meant to kill him. Nico felt like he was going to go insane down there, until, by some gods damn miracle, he managed to reach the Doors of Death, and escape.

He sat in that elevator, his head between his knees as he tried to relax his breathing, as the doors finally opened. He stood up, gripping the hilt of his Stygian Iron sword, as he was ready for some kind of ambush. Of course, he _was_ ambushed, but he certainly wasn’t expecting to be ambushed by twin giants in leotards. Immediately after that ambush, he was shoved into a large, bronze jar, and he could feel the oxygen depleting from the air-tight space. He sat down, curling into himself. He chewed his lip, feeling dread weigh down on him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his small stash of pomegranate seeds he’d taken from his step-mother’s garden. He sighed, and popped one into his mouth, spitting out the seed, and resting his head on his knees, feeling the darkness fall over him in an almost comfortable wave.

The nightmares weren’t comforting, though.

He was back in Tartarus, running from a hoard of monsters, he’d lost his sword at some point, and he was completely defenseless. He tried to keep running and running, hoping that he could somehow manage to outrun the monsters behind him. He looked over his shoulders, to see that the demons and creatures had only gotten closer, and then he ran into a wall. Nico wanted to cry, his path was blocked, and monsters were quickly surrounding him. He closed his eyes and tried to make some kind of skeletal warrior army to protect him, but he felt nothing. He felt no connection to his powers. He tried to push the earth up into some kind of barrier between him and the horde, but nothing, _nothing happened._ He was completely defenseless and alone - left to die and alone without anyone to hear him again, and no one could hear him scream.

He felt alone and useless and broken. He wasn’t wanted, he wasn’t a meaningful person to anyone. He’d just die alone and scared, with nothing but his own mistakes and failures coming up to bite him in the ass. He was never meant to do anything other than fail and fall apart at this point. Everything he’d ever done was for absolutely nothing, every breath he took was pointless and his entire existence was meant for nothing. He was just living to die and suffer. He was the outlet for heartbreak, pain and suffering. He was just the punching bag of the Fates; just a plaything and a puppet to be dragged through the mud, to be torn apart, limb from limb by monsters again and again like that was all he was good for - and if Nico were being honest, that’s exactly what he was good for. He was never meant to live up to anything other than an expendable pawn in the Gods’ never-ending game of chess. He was just a toy for the gods to break at their own leisure, and _they didn’t want to stop until he was a million pieces that could’ve never put back together again._ He was just going to keep breaking until the gods didn’t want him anymore.

So, why didn’t he just submit and let them kill him off? What point did he serve in life, if his only true destiny was to be broken?

1)

Nico walked along the edges of the Lethe, its milky torrent running swiftly, shining past. He watched as translucent waters glowed in a mysterious, and mystically beautiful way. He could step into the river and forget his troubles. His mind had been broken and torn apart by fighting two wars far too young, and of course by his trip through Tartarus. He tried to think of other ways out of the nightmares he was living. He’d contemplated suicide on so many occasions, but that would leave him dead with his memories still in tact, still with every single nightmarish memory burned into his mind, branded into the backs of his eyes, so ever time he closed his eyes they’d show him the horrific scenery.

If he allowed himself to fall into the Lethe, however, he’d simply forget everything. He’d just forget his entire life, his past and his name would not exist, and Nico di Angelo would just cease to exist. Just a blank slate. That would be better, wouldn’t? Wouldn’t he be better that way? Just let himself reset and learn things all over again. Forget his past pains and his mistakes.

Forget Bianca, Hazel and Reyna? He didn’t think he could bear the loss of those memories. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his closest friends, but at the same time, he couldn’t live with the nightmares and the mistakes weighing down on hi shoulders. He felt as if the weight was unbearable. If he hurt a few people, so what? They’d forget him soon enough, just like everyone else.

What about his father? What would Hades say? He didn’t know, but he was a _god_ he’d forget Nico in a few decades anyway, even if he didn’t take a swim in the Lethe. Gods never cared about mortals for more than a century, and Nico had been born in the 1930s. What was the point of him sticking around too much longer?

Nico stepped closer to the river, thinking about how much better it would be if he just stopped being him, and he gave himself a chance to start over. It sounded so wonderful, just to be something shiny and new.

“Nico?” A voice asked from behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Starting over,” He said, not turning around to look at his father.

“Why?” Hades asked.

“There’s no point in me being alive - there’s nothing for me to do, and if I just die, I’ll be stuck with the memory of my mistakes and failures.” Nico said, is voice falling to a soft whisper, as tears filled his eyes. “So, if I start over, I can just make something new out of my pathetic existence,”

“Your existence is not pathetic, and you have meaning to your life, son. You’re still young,” Hades sighed, resting his hand on Nico’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Nico didn’t know what to say, but he couldn’t help the tears from falling, slipping down his cheeks. He shook his head. Hades pulled him away from the River Lethe, guiding him away from the bank, his hand never leaving his back. Nico found it hard to breathe, and he didn’t remember the walk back to Hades’ castle, or he walk through the palace to a room, where Hades helped him sit down. Nico stared at the floor as he sobbed. Hades rubbed his back,trying to comfort him, but it didn’t seem to work. He felt his heart break for his son, watching his boy shake with his sobs. Hades took a deep breath, before pulling his son to his chest, Nico choked on a sob before burying his face into Hades’ chest, gripping his jacket tightly in his small fists.

“It’s okay, Nico,” Hades said softly. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Nico whispered, his voice so quiet, Hades almost thought he imagined it.

The god sighed and pressed a kiss to his son’s head. “It’s okay. I know things are hard right now, but I know you can make it through things.”

Nico just sobbed, burying himself into his father’s chest. Hades held him close, gently rocking his son back in forth in an attempt to comfort him. He didn’t know how to comfort his son like Maria could, she always knew how to take care of their children. Now, it was just Hades and Nico.

Hades rocked Nico, softly talking to him until the demigod calmed down, and stopped crying.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” He said quietly.

“It’s okay, Nico, I promise,” Hades pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I know I haven’t been that good of a father in the past, but I promise you, I’m going to be here for you. I don’t want you to think that your life is meaningless, because it’s _not_. You have so much potential to do great things, and I don’t want you to waste that potential. I just want you to be happy, Nico, because you deserve nothing more than happiness and the knowledge that you’re safe from harm.”

“I want it to stop - The nightmares and the monsters, I can’t take it anymore,” He choked out, sobbing again. “I just want to relax, and I want to sleep without being scared,”

“I know, Nico, I promise it’s all going to be okay.” Hades felt bad, he couldn’t truly promise that things were going to be okay, but he hoped that his words helped Nico. He knew he hadn’t been there in the past, but from that moment, he swore that he’d be there for his son. He’d make his son’s life better as much as he could. Nico deserved everything he wanted. He deserved happiness and safety. Hades was going to make sure that Nico was going to be safe and happy, even if it was the last thing he did in his immortal life. He was going to make his son better.


End file.
